Sage Quotes

• The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

  Laozi

  Flower, Careers, Two

  55 Copy quote

• Sage is cleansing and sacred.

  Pink

  Sacred, Cleansing

  51 Copy quote

• Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.

  Publilius Syrus

  Sarcastic, Communication, Silence

  "Sentences". Collection by Publilius Syrus. Maxim 914,

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Solitude, Beast, Brutes

  Baltasar Gracian (2006). “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”, p.55, Shambhala Publications

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

  Laozi

  Helping Others, Giving, Heaven

  5 Copy quote

• As a water bead on a lotus leaf, as water on a red lily, does not adhere, so the sage does not adhere to the seen, the heard, or the sensed.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Water, Doe

  12 Copy quote

• The flame is not as bright to itself as it is to those it illuminates: so too the sage.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Wisdom, Flames, Brilliance

  3 Copy quote

• Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day and night; it is not of the earth. But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and space, and it strives evermore to be born in the fruitful dust. Heaven is fulfilled in your sweet body, my child, in your palpitating heart. The sea is beating its drums in joy, the flowers are a-tiptoe to kiss you. For heaven is born in you, in the arms of the mother- dust.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Mother, Sweet, Children

  Rabindranath Tagore, “Lover's Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• As regards the quietude of the sage, he is not quiet because quietness is said to be good. He is quiet because the multitude of things cannot disturb his quietude. When water is still, one's beard and eyelashes are reflected in it. A skilled carpenter uses it in a level to obtain a measurement. If still water is so clear, how much more are the mental faculties! The mind of the sage is the mirror of heaven and earth in which all things are reflected.

  Zhuangzi

  Eyelashes, Mirrors, Water

  6 Copy quote

• In the family of continents, Africa is the silent, the brooding sister, courted for centuries by knight-errant empires - rejecting them one by one and severally, because she is too sage and a little bored with the importunity of it all.

  Beryl Markham

  Knights, Bored, Littles

  Beryl Markham (1994). “The Illustrated West with the Night”, Stewart, Tabori, & Chang

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Way of the Sage is to act but not to compete.

  Laozi

  Business, Work, Way

  Tao-te Ching ch. 81 (translation by Wing-Tsit Chan)

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sage seeks freedom from desire. He does not collect precious things. He learns not to hold on to ideas. He brings men back to what they have lost.

  Laozi

  Men, Ideas, Desire

  Laozi (1997). “道德经”, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Individuality in universality is the plan of creation. Each cell has its part in bringing about consciousness. Man is individual and at the same time universal. It is while realising our individual nature that we realise even our national and universal nature. Each is an infinite circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere. By practice one can feel universal Selfhood which is the essence of Hinduism. He who sees in every being his own Self is a Pandita (sage).

  Swami Vivekananda

  Men, Practice, Circles

  13 Copy quote

• Many Sages have said, "Your world is a dream. You're living in an illusion." They're referring to this world of the mind and the way we believe our thoughts about reality. When we see the world through our thoughts, we stop experiencing life as it really is and others as they really are.

  Adyashanti

  Dream, Believe, Reality

  Adyashanti (2011). “Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering”, p.8, Sounds True

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• If time and space, as sages say, Are things which cannot be, The sun which does not feel decay No greater is than we. So why, Love, should we ever pray To live a century? The butterfly that lives a day Has lived eternity.

  T. S. Eliot

  Butterfly, Space, Doe

  T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.223, Faber & Faber

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• But each time you use spirit, you're more likely to go crazy.” “Already crazy about you, Sage.

  Richelle Mead

  Crazy, Use, Spirit

  Richelle Mead (2013). “The Indigo Spell: A Bloodlines Novel”, p.68, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sage embraces things. Ordinary men discriminate amongst them and parade their discriminations before others. So I say; those who discriminate, fail to see.

  Zhuangzi

  Spiritual, Men, Ordinary

  12 Copy quote

• The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself.

  Wang Yangming

  Inspirational, Mistake, Lying

  38 Copy quote

• ..Sage is convinced one extraneous calorie will make her go from super skinny to just regular skinny. Tragedy.

  Richelle Mead

  Tragedy, Skinny, Calories

  Richelle Mead (2012). “The Golden Lily: A Bloodlines Novel”, p.40, Penguin

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is worth more.
  [Fr., Rien n'est si dangereux qu'un ignorant ami;
  Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi.]

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Wise, Ignorance, Ignorant

  7 Copy quote

• Be humble and you will remain entire. The sages do not display themselves, therefore they shine. They do not approve themselves, therefore they are noted. They do not praise themselves, therefore they have merit. They do not glory in themselves, therefore they excel.

  Laozi

  Humble, Humility, Shining

  6 Copy quote

• The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by.

  Zhuangzi

  Doubt, Torches, Chaos

  85 Copy quote

• The love of a Sage for his fellows likewise finds expression amongst mankind. Were he not told sop, he would not know that he loved his fellows. But whether he knows it or whether he does not know it, whether he hears it or whether he does not hear it, his love for his is without end, and mankind cease not to repose therein.

  Zhuangzi

  Expression, Taoism, Doe

  6 Copy quote

• For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule.

  Ray Bradbury

  Running, Real, Book

  Ray Bradbury (1990). “Fahrenheit 451: Curriculum Unit”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, More fortunate, alas! than we, Which without hardness will be sage, And gay without frivolity.

  Matthew Arnold

  Gay, Years, Age

  Matthew Arnold (1954). “A selection of his poems”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source